Progressivism and America's Tradition of Natural Law and Natural Rights

Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism ^ | Ronald J. Pestritto

[Ray76]

The U.S. Constitution, as its framers understood it, was a means to an end. It was crafted and adopted for the sake of achieving the natural-law principles referred to in the Declaration of Independence. The progressives understood this very clearly as well. The robust regulatory and redistributive aims of the progressive policy agenda were inevitably at odds with the natural-law theory of the founding. This basic fact makes understandable Woodrow Wilson’s admonition (in an address ostensibly honoring Thomas Jefferson) that, “if you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.” Do not, in other words, repeat that part of the Declaration that draws on the natural law and enshrines natural rights as the focal point of American government.

Wilson here would turn our attention away from the natural law and the timelessness of the Declaration’s conception of government, and would focus us instead on the litany of grievances made against George III. In other words, he would show the Declaration to be a merely practical document, to be understood as a specific, time-bound response to a set of specific historical circumstances. Once the circumstances change, so too must our conception of government.

[] Wilson, and other progressives championed historical contingency against the Declaration’s talk of natural law and the permanent principles of just government. The natural-law understanding of government may have been appropriate, they conceded, as a response to the prevailing tyranny of that day, but, they argued, all government has to be understood as a product of its particular historical context.

[Ray76]

Related resources:

Woodrow Wilson Address to the Jefferson Club of Los Angeles, Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought: Reconstruction to the present, (Scott J. Hammond, Kevin R. Hardwick, Howard Leslie Lubert), 323-324. books.google.com/books?id=-TiAirQlOYoC&lpg=PA323&pg=PA323#v=onepage&q&f=false

[nathanbedford]

The founders, well acquainted with tyranny through their experiences with George III, contrived a system of government designed to thwart tyranny, including the tyranny of the mob. The progressives would submit our liberties to the mob.

Yet, the founders were not unmindful of the need for government to represent to some degree in some matters the will of the majority. In other matters the imperishable truths of natural law must prevail. To effect this balance they constructed a government of limited powers, separated powers providing checks and balances, and guarantees of individual liberty. But to adhere to the natural law which called for consent of the governed, the founders also provided a procedure for changing the government and for changing the laws.

The procedure, the amendatory process outlined in the Constitution in Article V, is the very process which progressives have sought for more than a century to shortcut. All of the argument, all of the verbiage thrown up by Woodrow Wilson or John Dewey are but artful diversion to conceal their disdain for the amendatory process.

The historical record, alas, demonstrates all too clearly they have succeeded and the Constitution is in all practical effect being amended without the consent of the governed on a daily basis without even so much as a head fake for the constitutional process.

I presume to present here another reply:

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of the American Constitution:

The Constitution has become so distorted in interpretation and application that it has become at best ineffective in protecting liberty and at worst an instrument inflicting tyranny.

Nathan Bedford's second Maxim of the American Constitution:

The American Constitution is being amended everyday without the consent of the governed.

In order to believe that a Convention of the States presents a greater threat to liberty than our current state of politics one must believe:

1. The Constitution is not being amended by three women in black robes +1 liberal in black robes +1 swing vote on a case by case basis.

2. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president by executive order.

3. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president when he chooses which laws he will "faithfully" execute.

4. The Constitution is not being amended daily by regulation done by an unaccountable bureaucracy.

5. The Constitution is not being amended by simply being ignored.

6. The Constitution is not being amended by international treaty.

7. The Constitution is not being amended by Executive Order creating treaty powers depriving citizens of liberty as codified in the Bill of Rights.

8. The Constitution is not being amended by international bureaucracies such as, UN, GATT, World Bank, etc.

9. The Constitution is not being amended by the Federal Reserve Bank without reference to the will of the people.

10. The federal government under our current "constitutional" regime has suddenly become capable of reforming itself, balancing the budget and containing the debt.

11. The national debt of the United States is sustainable and will not cause the American constitutional system and our economy to crash and with them our representative democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution, such as it is, itself.

12. The Republican Party, presuming it gains a majority in the House and the Senate and gains the White House, will now do what is failed to do even under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and balance the budget, reduce the debt, stop regulating, reform the tax system, end crony capitalism, appoint judges who will not betray us and, finally, listen to the people.

13. That a runaway Convention of the States will occur, that it will persuade the delegates from conservative states, that it will be ratified by three quarters of the states' legislatures among whom conservatives control a majority, and the end result will somehow be worse than what we have now.

14. If we do nothing everything will be fine; if we keep doing what we have been doing everything will be fine; we have all the time in the world.

[Soul of the South]

I suspect less than 20% of the American people today understand the concept of natural law. Those who receive liberal arts educations today do not read Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Aquinus, Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Burke, Smith, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Luther, Calvin, Rousseau, Paine or even the founders - Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison, Hamilton.

With respect to Congress, probably less than 5% consider the founding principles in performing their jobs. Our elected representatives do not fear tyrants, do not have reverence for the Constitution, and most display contempt for the people who elected them.

Today’s tyranny is for the most part soft tyranny and many citizens, particularly in urban areas, seem content to trade some freedom for the tangible and intangible benefits they perceive as derived from government. It may be a majority of citizens in the 21st century are content to live in cities where they are have no moral, religious, or legal constraints on “private” enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh (sex, pornography, alcohol, and drugs) as long as their basic requirements for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and modern communications technology are realized. We do exist in a nation where the poorest citizens, who are slaves to the government’s entitlement plantation, enjoy a better lifestyle than 95% of the people on the planet.

A question I frequently ponder - What does individual liberty mean to the average citizen in today’s America? If the average citizen perceives he or she is “free” does the soft tyranny of today’s government matter? In the pursuit of “happiness” perhaps most are happy. If so, the frogs will continue to sit quietly as the temperature slowly rises in the pot.

[nathanbedford]

Instead of exposure to the classics which you have enumerated, my son, a third-year student at UVA, instead is required to read names I never heard of who supply the philosophical underpinnings for climate change, one-worldism, and collectivism in general, and that is only the first month of this semester.

Our immigration policies are actually calculated to dumb down the population and provide more cyphers to keep the music playing for yet another chorus. But after the music stops, and it must, the deluge.

It is at that time that the tyranny is likely to turn abruptly from soft to hard and the frogs will perhaps be compelled to contemplate the pursuit of happiness in a very immediate and practical way.

[Bigg Red]

mark

[Soul of the South]

“Instead of exposure to the classics which you have enumerated, my son, a third-year student at UVA, instead is required to read names I never heard of who supply the philosophical underpinnings for climate change, one-worldism, and collectivism in general, and that is only the first month of this semester.”

Fortunately, when I attended UVA the classics were still being taught! I was also fortunate to have some excellent professors who were able to teach and open minds instead of demanding adherence to progressive thought. While many of my professors were politically liberal, they encouraged free thought and debate. I never perceived my grade depended upon adherence to a professor’s world view.

Under the current administration of Ms. Sullivan the school has taken a hard turn from moderately liberal to full blown progressive, seeking to emulate the prestigious elite Ivy League and near Ivy League schools. As a consequence the school no longer receives an annual financial contribution from this alumnus and it will not receive a legacy gift from my estate.